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Tuesday, 6 August 2013

Snes Review - MegaMan X (Game 010)

Looking at me as a 9 year old you
may not have realised that I had an astonishing fast reflexes. This wasn’t
something I knew at the time, but it must have been the case as I could achieve
things that, as an adult, fill me with a smug sense of pride. This was 1991, my
pocket money was 20p a week and even in those days 20p didn’t get you much. I
couldn’t afford to buy games, so apart from anything I got for Christmas or
birthday, the games I played tended to be swapsies with friends. The rules of
the swap were simple; on a Friday you lent someone a game, they lent you one
and on Monday you either gave that game back or got punched. I wasn’t a little
boy who could stand many

punches. I was a geeky little lad who wore Mario
tracksuits and had a bowl hair cut. This gave me about 48 hours to play through
an entire game, it didn’t occur to me to borrow the same game again next
Friday. There was one child I swapped with called Ryan, who was the sort of
child who had a lot of games, probably a new one every week. I think his Mum
worked in Woolworths, got a discount and loads of free pick and mix.

One Friday, swapsie day, I had
asked Ryan to bring in a game I really wanted to play called Bionic Commando.
“Sorry” he said, “I lost it – but you can borrow this if you like it’s the same
thing”. I’m paraphrasing to give you a sense of occasion, the real conversation
probably included the phrases “rad” or “cowabunga”, it was 1991 after all. The
game he borrowed was Solstice, the game I borrowed was Mega Man 2 and thus a
love for a little blue bomber was born. Considering that my weekend was equally
shared between playing games in my room and climbing trees, I couldn’t have had
long with the game over that weekend. 15 or so hours, and whatever time after ‘lights
out’ that I could sneak without my parents noticing. In that time I not only
finished Mega Man 2, a game now known for its difficulty, I could finish it in
one sitting. How on earth did I manage that? I was 9, and I even figured out
the best order to take on the robot masters without the internet (the idea of
every computer in the world being connected was the stuff of science fiction in
1991). But it didn’t stop at Mega Man 2,
I recall playing through several others with equal amounts of success and ninja
reflexes. I really enjoyed them; I liked the funny little blue man and adored
the music.

It’s a mystery then why come the
16 bit era I never played Mega Man X, especially when my beloved Super Play
magazine sung its praises almost every issue.
I first actually played this as Mega Man
Maverick Hunter X on the PSP, which I got in one of those Impulse “I
used to love those as a kid” moments. Though the game is a modern day remake,
it maintains the bulk of the original at its core. The look make be 2.5d, the
music may be more elaborate, and there may be anime cut scenes, but for me
there is more charm in the original.

There is elegance and beauty for me in pixel art and Mega Man X is
literally pixel art at its best. Detailed, colourful, varied characters all
wonderfully animated. But the beauty doesn’t stop at the player sprites. The
backgrounds with their seemingly infinite layers parallax scrolling allude to a futuristic world taken straight
out of an Astro Boy anime. Each level
unique in its own right, but uniform in a way that makes the game feel cohesive
and rich. Some games such as Donkey Kong Country or Starwing may make people
marvel at their technical prowess, but Mega Man X simply looks incredible
through mastery of the pixel sprite craft. The music too sounds like the
greatest hits of a modern day Chip Tune composer, and its clear why this game
is often remixed by those so inclined. Catchy, memorable, without being
distracting and irritating or repetitive. It’s telling that the modern day
re-imagining in Maverick Hunter X, that was designed to appeal to a modern day
player, is much less attractive to me. The excess of guitars and pounding
bass lines take away from the purity, take away from the melody, take away
from the genius.

Considering this game looks and
sounds this good, it’s astonishing that the gameplay matches up. For me, its
the perfect pitch of difficultly – challenging without being frustrating. I
love the subtle mix of exploration and action. How you need to experiment with
the optimum order to take on the levels and their robot masters. I didn’t
realise till multiple play through too, that beyond the normal route of each
level lay hidden bonuses and secrets. Forcing you to be creative with your
newly found abilities and retread old ground in an almost Metroid manner. It’s
great when a game surprises you, and rewards you for creative approaches and
taking risks. The boss may seem brutal on the first few tries (particularly Launch Octopus and the spider boss ) but thankfully the password allows you to try a
different approach (albeit after a brief hiatus to replay the level). And what
a moment it is when you discover how to beat each one, when your realise that
what you struggled with could so easily be overcome with the right choice of
weapon or the right method of attack. What a master stroke it is that the
Megaman games include the bosses again at the end of the game. What once seemed so challenging now can be
destroyed with ease and barely a drop of your energy is taken. X may be in awe
of Zero at the start of the game, but by the end you are in awe at your own
skills. You have a very tangible illustration of personal growth and its
embodiment in the surrogate character. To those who don’t play games, the idea
that one could inspire pride or a sense of huge accomplishment may seem
impossible. But how wonderful that a game such as this can inspire in me such
positive emotions and that they feel earned and deserved.

This may all sound like a glowing
flood of praise for the game but don’t be fooled into thinking it’s perfect.
There’s all sorts of niggles that should really have been reconsidered as the
game moved from 8 bit to 16 bit. X’s inability to fire in any direction other
than left or right seems excessively limiting. The imprecise dash jump that you
depend on to reach so many upgrades can be unpredictable and for a little guy
decked out in futuristic armour why does he have such a problem with spikes. But
these niggles are exactly that – nit picking and searching for failings when
the positives are much more abundant.

It's funny because It's true

For the price tag the game now
commands, the length however is less than you would hope. Indeed the briefness
of the game is something that was universally criticised upon the original
release. Perhaps though this is the greatest compliment you can give
anything, a reluctance for it to end
means you are really enjoying something and want the experience to last as long
as possible. The hours I’ve spent with this game have been some of the most enjoyable
since I picked up the old controller. So much so that the temptation to pay
what would amount to literally 83 years worth of pocket money for the sequel is
almost too great to resist.

How did I acquire this?

In my previous blog post for
Shadow Run I talked about a gaming friend I had met on Twitter. Picture the scene;
we are sitting in a Zelda Orchestral Recital together chatting about this very
blog. ‘What game is top of your wish list’ he asks, ‘Mega Man X’ I respond. Low
and behold, a few weeks later what should drop through the letter box? Once again I must extend my thanks to my new online
friend Paulo for reuniting me with an old friend in Mega Man.I now however also own a boxed complete copy thanks to a certain Mr. Andy. I paid a great price (much less than I thought people would part with it for!) and it's as immaculate as you could hope for. Envy me!